Merlin
'Merlin '''is a major character in ''Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders. He was inspired by the Arthurian character Merlin and voiced by Bob Kaliban. to display the royal Sun Stone in the book]]Merlin is an ancient and eternal wizard who has dedicated himself to the safety and well-being of the magical kingdom of Avalon, always endangered by wild magic. For over a thousand years, he been preserving the goodness and delicate balance of the magic. But as the show begins, Merlin becomes banished into the realm of wild magic by his former apprentice, the evil Lady Kale. Now, Merlin entrusts his current generation of young students—the titular Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders—to defeat Kale before it is too late for him and the safety of Avalon. In their mission, the girls are aided by Merlin's magic animal companion, a talking owl named Archie, and rely on Merlin's own infrequent advice and also his magic staff, now turned into the key to the Jewel Box. "Darkness always returns, my child. But the strength and love of our friends will hold the darkness back." In the show File:Merlin's students.png |Merlin's Jewel Riders champions File:Kale enemy.png|Merlin's evil rival, Lady Kale File:Morgana nemesis.png|Morgana, his ancient nemesis Background outside New Camelot ]] Merlin is the great and wise wizard that is over one thousand years old who has dedicated to preserve the goodness of the magical land of Avalon. He has long ago harnessed and bound the wild magic, so he could create a wondrous and beautiful place where humans and animals could work and live in harmony. As such, he is known as the "Father of Avalon". It was also him who planted the Travel Trees through the lands and established the laws. |220x220px]] A millennium prior to the beginning of the story, the evil Queen Morgana and her ancient wizards had plotted to betray and destroy Merlin during the Friendship Ring ceremony, but their plan did not work and Merlin won. Since then, he has continued protecting the magic of Avalon, living in his home near New Camelot and making sure its magic cannot fall into wrong hands. Merlin looks like harmless old man and usually is wonderfully kind and compassionate, but has no tolerance for whoever wants to use Avalon's magic to harm.This is evident in the dweasels' lines when reacting to Kale's plans for Merlin in "Jewel Quest, Part I": "Merlin would fry us like little ants / Squash us like bugs / Tweek us like tomatoes / Burst us like bubbles." "]] Merlin has been training the Jewel Riders in the use of the Enchanted Jewels and watching over the royal family for generations. He also thought the gifted young princess Kale in the use of magic, but it was her kind sister Anya who has been chosen to inherit the royal Sun Stone and the throne of Avalon. Power-hungry Kale has never forgiven him for what she thought was denying her birthright. She began scheming to not only replace Anya, for which she has been banished from New Camelot, but also take "all that is Merlin's" and reign over Avalon forever. Appearances First season to the hawk|229x229px]] As the series begins, Merlin is suddenly overpowered by Lady Kale who has found the Dark Stone, a formidable jewel of evil magic that had been originally created by Morgana to specifically use against him. "You have taught me too well," Kale taunts Merlin as he is caught in a glowing light sphere and held completely in her power. When he refuses to give her the power over the magic of Avalon by denying her the key to his Jewel Box, Kale cruelly sends him hurling into wild magic to perish there. But, unknown to Kale, she has failed to destroy the old wizard, as he floated until the Gliders found him and brought him to the relative safety of the Cloud City. Soon, Merlin appears in Avalon to prevent her from stealing the Crown Jewels, but now he cannot return until all seven of them are collected again. in "Wizard's Peak"]] Merlin is now forced to place all hope on the three young Jewel Riders led by Queen Anya's daughter Princess Gwenevere, sending them on a great quest to restore harmony in the magic and defeat Kale before she can become invincible.The girls are accompanied by his faithful talking owl familiar Archimedes, better known as Archie. With his guidance, the young heroines need to fight to stop Kale's power from growing stronger, and hopefully put an end to her dark ambition for good so they can bring back peace to the kingdom. After each of the Crown Jewels is secured by the girls, a projected image of Merlin appears for a short while to talk with them and say some words of advice. Meanwhile, Kale realized that she cannot control the Crown Jewels as long as Merlin still lives since "even from the Wild Magic he torments" her, so she works to find and get him out of her way once and for all. in "Full Circle"|220x220px]] Eventually (in the episode "Full Circle"), Merlin directly confronts the self-proclaimed 'Queen Kale' after she manages to take over Avalon and works to find and eliminate him so everything that is Merlin's would become hers. His implacable enemy, now more powerful than ever, is ready to do anything to rid of him, even declaring she shall destroy him "if it's the last thing I do." But Merlin outsmarts her in a gamble, as he only feigns being finished off in a ruse to trick Kale into thinking he is now gone and she can at last rule all of magic with the Crown Jewels. Kale falls into the trap and is destroyed by the great good magic of the Crystal Palace. But saving the kingdom from the reign of evil comes at the cost of Merlin's staff, and without it he cannot return and will have to remain exiled. (Merlin: "Sometimes we make sacrifices for our friends.") This leaves Queen Anya and the Jewel Riders with the task to find a way to still get him out of the Wild Magic somehow. File:Merlin bubble.png|Merlin is captured by Kale's dark magic in "Jewel Quest, Part I" File:Melin magic.png|Merlin casts a spell to pull Kale into the Wild Magic in "Full Circle" File:Merlin speech.png|Merlin's speech to his champions and the royal family after their first Jewel Quest Second season in "Shadowsong"]] In the second season, Merlin is mostly absent. He is rarely able to communicate with the Jewel Riders or do anything until the very finale (the episodes "Morgana" and "Shadowsong" are two exceptions) as they fight his returning archenemy Morgana, now alive again but trapped in the Wild Magic. Morgana sends the also revived Lady Kale to find and collect for her the Wizard Jewels that once belonged to his evil rivals but now are scattered across Avalon and the other realms. But Merlin knows his students will need to get the Wizard Jewels first for Kale and Morgana to be stopped. In "The Fortune Jewel", he manages to send back one of the ancient wizards, his former friend Derek, back to Avalon in a cat form, so Derek can redeem himself by securing his own magic stone for the Jewel Riders, and shows up to give the message about the secret of Grandfather Travel Tree once the second Jewel Quest is completed. "]] Eventually, in "The One Jewel" ("The Last Dance"), after Gwenevere takes down her wicked aunt Kale for good, Merlin at last appears, as he confronts not only Morgana but also the summoned ghosts of several evil wizards in the showdown at the Center of the Wild Magic. It is revealed Merlin had been there since his staff was destroyed, trying to turn all the magic to good. But in the end, thanks to the aid of Gwen and her friends, Merlin emerges victorious over his old enemies for the second time, and this time completely as nothing remains of them even withing Wild Magic. All of magic is made good forever, and Merlin sets out to finally returns to Avalon with the supremely powerful One Jewel as his new personal jewel. File:Dark alliance.png|Merlin's enemies working together Shore.png|The end of Kale's quest for power File:Reunion.png|The happy reunion Behind the scenes Merlin in the series draws from the popular imagination of this legendary figure following the success of T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone and its Disney cartoon adaptation, that is an old magician mentor with long beard and mustache, and a blue robe with a pointed hat decorated with symbols, and living in a forest cottage. His pet owl Archimedes was also directly inspired by the character of the same name from that work. One difference is that the Jewel Riders Merlin was always shown with four fingers (including thumb) in pre-production pictures, but has five fingers in the show. Its not actually shown in the series, but he is bald under wizard hat.Greg Autore and the Toy Design of Jewel Riders - Part Two - The Jewel Riders Archive He was voiced by Bob Kaliban in English, by Wolf Rahtjen in German, by Roger Carel in French, and by Maurizio Scattorin in Italian. In the Enchanted Camelot version scripts, Merlin is trapped in his bubble not by a deer apparition, but by a green cat. Lady Kale does not just throw Merlin into the Wild Magic, she full on vaporizes him into "Wizard Pixie Dust." When he appears after Gwen gets her Sun Stone, Merlin says he now exists in the "spiritual plane, flowing within the wild magic of Camelot." A different Merlin character, who however also served as the protagonists' mentor figure in their fight against Morgana, has previously appeared in King Arthur and the Knights of Justice, another Arthurian-themed animated series from the same production company (BKN). Legacy 's Henry Gardener]] Merlin from ''Jewel Riders inspired the Avalon: Web of Magic character of Henry Gardener.Character Comparison: Henry Gardener | The Avalon Archive Gardener was supposed to be mentor to the current mages, but was kidnapped by the Dark Sorceress before the current party even discovered their jewels; they found a hologram of him, but were not taught about their powers or mage levels. Merlin’s speech in "Shadowsong" is actually a part of the books' Avalon prophecy. Furthermore, a character named Marlin also appears in the series. See also * Merlin's cottage * List of characters References Category:Non-humans Category:Major characters Category:Wizards Category:Male characters